chuch of christ

The scripture says “Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good” 1 Thess 5:21 The Bible invites those who question it to test what it says. Jesus said in John 7:17 “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.” In other words – check out what is taught. Try it out to see if it is true. Christianity isn’t afraid of evaluation, in fact it invites public scrutiny. (Acts 17:11)

In contrast, many religions of the world don’t see truth as something that is subject to evaluation and testing. They want truth to be a matter of personal conclusion and nothing else. When asked what is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ they will claim not to be sure. This is designed to make them look humble. But these same individuals want you to believe what they believe. If you state your belief in the word of God as absolute truth, and Jesus Christ as the only way to heaven – you are looked upon as intolerant or arrogant. But it is not arrogant to state your belief and present the evidence to support it, and then invite scrutiny.

The truth is that these other religions do not want to defend their beliefs or offer proof. They castigate anyone who wants to question what they teach or to debate the evidence. Consider the following: suppose you are stranded in the desert with no water and you come across two people . One says “I have water and here is the evidence for it being pure and clean. Test it for yourself.” The second person says “Don’t listen to that fellow who wants you to test everything. I have water, I think. It may be poison, but I’m not going to allow you to test it. Just trust me and let’s drink it together and see what happens.” Who is the truly arrogant person here?

There is such a thing as false humility. Paul wrote in Col 2:23 that some had a ‘show’ of humility, but were not truly humble. Many religious teachers seem humble, but ask you to believe what they are saying without any evidence or allowing the subjective testing of their beliefs. This is the height of arrogance.

If someone says to you , ‘I’m not sure – you may be right and I may be wrong’, then you need to ask them –‘ then why are you living the way that you do? If you may be wrong or if you are not sure, then why don’t you give up what you are doing and teaching others?’ How can you ask someone to believe what you do when you cannot offer any evidence of its truthfulness? We as Christians need to clearly state what we believe and invite others to examine the truth of the scriptures for themselves. Christians have no fear of rigorous examination of our beliefs, but those who believe only because someone else ‘told them it was so’ have everything to fear! (1 John 4:1)